Sex And The Sleepwalker

It wasn’t Antoine’s fault that the boredom hadn’t left her. She was the problem. She found herself thinking too much during intimate times. Analyzing every move.

Not that she’d always been that way. Far from it. There’d been a time in her life when a man’s touch had set her ablaze. But she refused to think about that man. It was bad enough she’d dreamed about him.

Maybe she’d just grown too cerebral to experience sexual bliss. After five weeks of dating her, Antoine had probably realized as much. Hence all those recent business trips.

Had she really thought of herself as an urban adventuress in her dream last night, with more notches on her bedpost than the gals on Sex and the City? She nearly snorted at the thought. In real life, her notches were few and far between.

But not nonexistent. She’d had pleasurable affairs. She was far from frigid, as Cade Hunter had claimed last night. Dream or no dream, that accusation still smarted.

“If Antoine laid a hand on you in anger,” Lexi said, “I’ll stomp his butt. I don’t hold with violence.”

Brynn resisted the urge to point out the irony in those two statements, or to laugh at the image of petite Lexi stomping a big guy like Antoine. “He didn’t do anything, I swear. He wasn’t even here last night. He left town after dinner for another business trip.”

Seeing the doubt on Lexi’s face, Brynn realized she had to come clean about what had really happened, or Antoine would be labeled a woman-beater. But how she hated to confess! Her sleepwalking was sure to make Lexi and Trish worry, considering Brynn’s role as resident manager of the inn. Roaming about in a zombielike state couldn’t be good for business.

“If you must know, I caused the ruckus myself last night,” Brynn admitted. “I was dreaming.”

Lexi frowned, perplexed. “What does dreaming have to do with—” She broke off as understanding dawned. “Oh, no. You haven’t started sleepwalking again, have you?”

Brynn assumed she was remembering the night in the sorority house when Lexi had woken to find her wandering around their bedroom, carrying on about Daytona Beach and a Pontiac Firebird. Thank goodness her roommate hadn’t paid much attention to what she’d been saying. The near miss of having her deepest, darkest secret exposed had shaken Brynn so much that she’d spent months taking herbs, sleeping aids, meditation therapy and biofeedback sessions to stop her from walking or blabbing in her sleep. Brynn believed it had been pure determination that had eventually broken the habit.

“Last night was the first time I’ve walked in my sleep since college,” Brynn said, hoping to reassure Lexi with that fact. “I guess the onset of football season was just too much for me to take, um, lying down.”

“So what did you do?”

“Rammed into a wall. Woke up in a closet.” She didn’t mention that it had been the basement broom closet. Lexi didn’t need to know she’d actually left her bedroom suite.

“That’s pitiful.” Lexi shook her spiky platinum head in grim reflection. “I’ll bet I know why this happened. You’re keeping too much bottled up inside. You’re still sexually repressed.”

Brynn stared at her in astonishment. How had she arrived at that conclusion? For all Lexi knew, her sex life was hotter than ever with Antoine.

“Oh, don’t look so surprised. I know you, Brynn Sutherland. If you were getting any decent action, you’d be giddy with relief, after all those years of pressure building up. Believe me, I have personal experience with this phenomenon.” She slumped back in her chair and sighed. “I had such high hopes for you and Antoine.”

Brynn rested her head against the back of the rocker. “It’s not his fault. It’s mine.”

“You just haven’t found the right guy.”

Hating to get her started again on a campaign to find her a red-hot lover, Brynn steered the conversation back to its original track. “I doubt that my sex life has anything to do with the sleepwalking, anyway. It’s stress related.”

“You’ve been stressed more than this plenty of times, but I haven’t heard about your sleepwalking until now. What was your dream about?”

The question caught Brynn off guard. “Nothing. Nobody. That is, nobody I know.” She felt unreasonably shaken by the inquiry. “I mean, I might have known them, but…uh…” Impromptu lying had never been her strong suit.

That intent look came over Lexi’s face again, and Brynn nearly groaned. Her friend would hound her until she confessed. With Lexi’s truth-seeking, mind-probing talents, it was a wonder Brynn was able to keep any secrets from her at all.

She did, though. The important one. The one about Daytona Beach and the Firebird.

“I don’t see how this is pertinent,” Brynn said, caving under the pressure, “but the only person I recognized in the dream other than Candice Bergen was Cade Hunter.”

“Cade Hunter.” Lexi contemplated the information, then broke into a small, self-congratulatory smile. “So I was right. The sleepwalking does have to do with your sex life.”

“It does not! It’s just that Trish mentioned running into him yesterday.”

“Cade Hunter was the last guy you really went crazy over.”

“I didn’t go crazy over him.”

“You know you did. Half the girls in our sorority house did, and he wasn’t even a frat boy. That man was one well-built, good-looking hunk of masculinity.”

“Not good-looking, really. Appealing, you could say.”

“You could say a whole lot more than that! He’s a manly man. And more to the point, he’s an old flame of yours, which means that time has probably glorified him in your mind.”

“Glorified him? Cade? You’ve got to be kidding.”

“Everyone knows that old flames burn hotter in a woman’s memory than they ever did in real life.”

Brynn considered the statement and wondered if it was true. As much as she despised him for his heartless behavior, she couldn’t deny that her memories of Cade Hunter sparked more sensuous heat in her than any of her later relationships. He and she hadn’t made love per se, but their make-out sessions had always stirred an intense longing. Had the passage of time exaggerated that longing, until no flesh-and-blood man could ever compete? It was a startling thought.

“A woman in your unfulfilled state, dreaming about an old flame as hot as Cade Hunter…” Lexi shook her head, pondering the situation. “No wonder you got so worked up.”

“I wasn’t ‘worked up’ over Cade! At least, not in a sexual way. I was angry because he was insulting me.”

“Insulting you how?”

Telltale warmth crept into her face again. She didn’t want to say he’d been calling her a “prick tease.” That would lead Lexi to analyze the underlying reason she’d dreamed such things…and Brynn didn’t want to talk about how she and Cade had broken off their relationship all those years ago. Make love to me, Brynn, or we’re through.

She still had a hard time even thinking about his ultimatum, let alone discussing it. She’d been falling in love with him—deeply, desperately—while Cade had clearly wanted her only for sex. Hurt, angry and humiliated, she’d broken up with him. He’d lost no time finding someone else. A sorority sister of hers, no less, who soon turned up pregnant.

That had been years ago. Brynn now viewed the entire episode as a lesson learned. She’d fully recuperated from the devastation, of course, and was much wiser to the ways of unscrupulous heartbreakers like Cade Hunter.

But she didn’t want to talk about it, now or ever.

“I don’t remember exactly how he was insulting me,” she said, avoiding Lexi’s probing gaze.

“Uh-huh.” Clearly she knew Brynn was withholding information. Fortunately, Lexi didn’t press the issue.

Brynn couldn’t have been more relieved. Because even though she had been angry with Cade in the dream, she’d also ripped open her pajama top in the throes of an erotic challenge. Maybe her sexual stagnation was affecting her more than she’d thought.

“Take my advice, girlfriend,” Lexi said. “Go find a man you’re really hot for and let loose with that pent-up energy. Otherwise, who knows what’ll become of you?”

Words of wisdom, no doubt. But Brynn wasn’t someone who could easily “let loose.” Except, of course, in her dreams.

“WE’VE GOT OUR ‘IN’,” Cade Hunter murmured into his cell phone as he drove through the old, tree-shaded neighborhood surrounding the Three Sisters Bed & Breakfast Inn. He’d found it necessary to refamiliarize himself with the lay of the land. It had been too many years since he’d lived nearby to remember all the details. “I followed Trish to a cafе yesterday. Made contact. She invited me to stay at the inn. I’m on my way.”

His associate murmured his approval, and Cade disconnected the call. If this encounter with Trish hadn’t produced an invitation, he’d had another ruse ready to justify his visit. This would be better, though. Trish had invited him, an old college chum, and he’d accepted. No suspicions would be raised about his motive for being there.

And that was important.